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Fly Crowded Skies: More Travelers, Fewer Flights Mean Competition for Seats

Posted on: Sunday, 18 June 2006, 09:00 CDT

By Betty Lin-Fisher,Beacon Journal business writer, The Akron Beacon Journal, Ohio

Jun. 18--If summer air travel is in your future, brace yourself: you may be in for a bumpy ride.

This summer, a record 207 million travelers are expected to be flying, according to one industry estimate. At the same time, the airlines have reduced the number of flights, switched to smaller regional jet planes with fewer seats and loaded them up with more people.

Overall, there are 6.6 million fewer seats available on U.S. airplanes this summer compared with last summer, according to BACK Aviation Solutions, an aviation consulting company in New Haven, Conn.

If you're flying to popular destinations,such as Florida, "there will be many flights on many days that will be 100 percent full. There won't be a seat in the house," said David Castelveter, spokesman for the Air Transport Association, the Washington, D.C.-based trade organization for U.S. airlines.

So that coveted seat between you and the next passenger may not be available for you to stretch out. And, if your flight is canceled or delayed for weather or mechanical problems, that could wreak havoc on your travel plans. Airlines will be struggling to rebook you and others onto already-packed flights.

A colleague recently had this unfortunate experience. About two weeks ago, he took a few days off work for an extended weekend trip to Rhode Island.

But when he got to the airport on Thursday, a line of bad thunderstorms delayed his flight for hours.

The airline said if he got on that flight, they could get him to his connecting city of Baltimore, but they couldn't get him on another flight to Rhode Island until Saturday night -- two days later. To top it off, he'd be responsible for paying for a hotel while he was stranded in Baltimore. He tried to fly stand-by on another flight, but didn't get on that either. Frustrated, he decided not to go on the trip at all.

Consumers will see more of this as time goes on, predicted Dan Lanser, owner of A Plus Travel Adventures in Green.

As airlines offer fewer flights and load up the ones they have, "if something goes awry, there's no place to put the people that are interrupted," he said.

Having stranded customers or customers who can't get on flights is frustrating for the airlines as well, Castelveter said.

"Their product is a perishable one. When that airplane leaves and the seat isn't sold, they've lost revenue," he said.

However, full planes are good for airlines. Airlines want what's called high load factors, which is the percentage of plane seats filled. After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, load factors were about 60 percent. Before the 2001 attacks, they were at 70 percent.

Last year, load factors nationally averaged 74.3 percent, according to BACK Aviation. Castelveter said his organization estimates this summer, the average load factors will be in the mid-80s.

Airlines have learned their lesson since many of the major carriers, also known as legacy carriers, have gone through bankruptcies to survive, said David Stempler, president of the Washington, D.C.-based Air Travelers Association, an advocacy group for passengers.

"They want to keep load factors at high levels and charge ever higher fares. I think this is the wave we're going to see, especially at peak travel times," he said.

Prices traditionally go up in the summer, but record fuel prices and more demand for the fewer plane seats are driving prices up, experts said.

Round-trip prices to Florida are at least $100 more than last summer for even the low-cost carriers, said Lanser, the Green travel agency owner who is also president of the Mid-America chapter of the American Society of Travel Agents.

Overall, prices are still low if you look at historical trends, but they've been edging up from what Stempler calls the "low, low fares."

Low-priced tickets are still available, but they just get snapped up quickly, experts said.

Record fuel prices are a conundrum for carriers, said Castelveter. "They do want to raise their prices to offset costs, but there are limits of how much carriers can raise their fares based on what their competitors do."

Airline rates have had to reflect the high fuel prices, AirTran Airways Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Joe Leonard told me last month when he was in Akron.

"They have to go up sooner or later. You have to pay the fuel bill," he said.

The airline's bookings are up this summer. As the legacy carriers have cut flights and moved to smaller planes, AirTran has picked up extra traffic on its fleet of full-sized jets, Leonard said.

Lanser said he hasn't seen many empty seats on any airline's flights.

"Flying isn't going to be fun," he said.

Officials at the Akron-Canton Airport knew a summer like this was coming, said Kristie Van Auken, the airport's marketing director.

There will be 17 percent fewer seats out of Akron-Canton this summer compared with last summer. Cleveland is losing 6.5 percent of its seats, according to data provided by BACK Aviation.

The major drop at Akron-Canton is because traditional airlines reduced the number of flights and seats, and because Delta, the airport's second-largest carrier, retreated from trying a continuous hub strategy, Van Auken said.

This summer, Delta is offering nearly 18,000 fewer seats, but the flights it canceled were at strange hours without a lot of passengers. The airline is still serving the same number of passengers on fewer flights, she said.

Airport officials are trying to encourage passengers to fly out of Akron-Canton by pushing its perks: a smaller airport with fewer hassles. Van Auken also points out that smaller doesn't necessarily mean there aren't enough flights to accommodate passengers if delays or cancellations occur.

"We're focused on our customer experience," Van Auken said. "Yes, the planes are fuller, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. If the experience is still good, it's not necessarily a bad thing."

Passengers will just have to be realistic in their expectations. For instance, if you're expecting that open middle seat and don't get it, you're not going to have a good experience. But if you expect a full plane and your flight is on time and gets you to your destination in a decent mood, you should consider yourself lucky. Or at least better off than the person who is stuck back at the airport.

Or take this advice from Stempler, with the airline passengers group: "Hope for the best and plan for the worst. Make sure you have water and things to eat and try to be as self-sufficient as you can be as delays can occur."

Betty Lin-Fisher can be reached at 330-996-3724 or blinfisher@thebeaconjournal.com

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Akron Beacon Journal, Ohio

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: Akron Beacon Journal (Akron, Ohio)

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